Panoramic interlude

I suppose this is not the most spectacular compilation of Senegalese music imaginable, but in the 1980s it did fill a gap in my appetite for more, after getting into contact with the likes of Number One and the early Etoile records.

Omar Pene's vocals in "Bass" still manage to pierce through concrete walls, as they did when I first heard this decades ago. And Baobab's "Utru Horas", titled "Loi Di Nos" in this collection, is still cool enough to elicit a kiss from my wife. I prefer the version of "Sutukum" by Canari de Kaolack on Touba Auto K7 because of the exaggerate stereo. On this album it seems to have been 'corrected', - which is a pity...
But, as I said, it is an interlude.

Bellot MCA 306 (new link July 25, 2014)

Baobab

I'm afraid I am one of those cynics that gets Bueno Vista shivers with every release of yet another 'new' Baobab CD. I mean, like those soneros from Cuba, I really like the music they made when the world wasn't watching, but I can't get the same emotion from their reheated offerings.
I don't mean they shouldn't be 'reaping' what they have been 'sowing', - even if this was decades ago.

I have been trying to analyse the reasons for my allergy, and - although I am still working at it - I have an idea that it must have something to do with pretension. Or the absence of presumptuousness, the 'unpretentiousness', that appeals to me in those original recordings.
Take the tracks on this cassette, for example. Recorded almost casually, and no doubt 'live'. I am sure the musicians in these recordings had no idea they would be 'cult heroes' thirty years later.
How else can one croon a song like "Baobab" in hispano-, eh... something?

This cassette has it all: from the guitar of Attisso and the sax of Cissokho to the vocal range of Medoune Diallo (mature), Balla Sidibé & Rudy Gomis (harmonic) and teenager Thione Seck. My guess is that these recordings are from the late 1970s. Unlike the later "A Paris" recordings, the focus in this cassette is on versions of Senegalese traditionals.
And great versions they are too!

Bellot Records C 3805 (new link Febr. 22, 2012)

PS: If you want more information about the group, there are several biographies available (here's one).

Laye M'Boup

A lot (here or here or here) has been written about orchestre Baobab. So I don't have to introduce this Senegalese orchestra.

I liked the "Ken Dou Werente" lp in the 1980s, but I have not heard a lot of new compositions of the band since. A few years after the release of that album I got hold of a few cassettes released by Bellot Records (who at the time still sold music for affordable prices). And these, with all the technical advances and digital doodahs, remain my favorite recordings of Baobab.

And among those, this cassette is the one I would choose in my top ten from Senegal. It's the most Senegalese of Baobab's recordings, released as a tribute to Laye M'Boup, singer with Baobab from 1970 until his death in 1974.
And what a singer this man was! A voice that sends shivers down my spine. And even more so* with this recording. that just has that extra edge....

Orch. Baobab Gouye Gui de Dakar vol.3 - Hommage A Laye M'Boup (Bellot Records C 3806)

*Some of these tracks on this cassette have been released on the sympathetic Dakar Sound label (DKS 014).